


Progress

by actuallymarie



Category: Splatoon
Genre: AAAANGST, Angst, Crying, Cuddling, Emotional Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluffy Ending, Lots of Crying, Nightmares, Trauma, marie’s really unhealthy ok, the resolution nintendo won’t give us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17076644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actuallymarie/pseuds/actuallymarie
Summary: Marie has a nightmare.





	Progress

   Void. Emptiness. Nothingness, with nothing but the faint, ambient droning she had grown both accustomed and deaf to. This place could be a world of infinite possibility, yet these days, she only felt trapped.  
    “Hic...”   
    The pale, ghastly star of the sea turned her head in the direction of the noise and, to her dismay, she saw someone else, clad in a yukata painfully recognizable from distant memories. She faced herself toward Marie, but her gaze remained unfocused as if Marie was completely transparent. Tears flowed freely from the pair of golden eyes, a smile forced upon her features.   
    “Callie—“   
    Completely ignored. The figure would instead wipe the various fluids of sadness against a cotton sleeve and make a deep “sniff” as a futile attempt to recollect herself.   
    With a jolt of motherly instinct,  Marie ran to the sobbing lady, only to find herself on the floor in a matter of seconds with her body feeling as if it were glued down. Still, the visitor’s frame remained, blinded from crying, before turning around.   
    “No, nonono...” A single grounded hand was forced upward despite the anguish from separating it from the invisible floor, reaching for her cousin in desperation. She, in return, would begin to walk away.   
    “Please!” Marie begged, wanting her to stop, to stay, to tell her what was wrong.   
    Her silhouette grew smaller and smaller with each step.   
    Consciousness returned to Marie’s body as she opened her eyes once more, soul teleported from the wicked world back to her bedroom. Her nightshirt was absolutely soaked with sweat, along with the sheets and blankets that surrounded her. Great, now she felt _and_ smelled terrible. Still half-asleep, her mind would grasp around for reality, filling her cranium with recent memory as a form of snapping her out of the funk.   
    Callie was back. It had been about a month since she had been rescued, and was in the other room of the little house they now resided in at Octo Valley.   
    Nevertheless, a cold lump of doubt kept building up in her chest, slowly getting worse and worse as she tried to go back to sleep before finally becoming unbearable and forcing her to become vertical. Her tired eyes focused on the alarm clock which in response flashed a “2:00” in her direction, before shutting them tightly at the painfully bright numbers. With a huff, she exited, making a beeline to Callie’s room despite now being drained of fluids and craving a nice, tall glass of literally anything.   
    And there she was, sleeping so peacefully in her puffy futon. It was probably the best sleep she’s gotten since she had returned, usually being disturbed with frequent night terrors brought on by the events not too long ago. The singer claimed that she had memory of being brainwashed, nor what she had done thanks to it, but, similar to how repressed memories worked, was still very much affected, having the faintest of recollections coming back to her only while she was asleep.   
    Marie decided to stay with her, in case the tranquility was interrupted.   
  
    “Marie? Mariiie?”   
    Oh.   
    “It’s two in the P.M., dum-dum! Wake uuuup!” shouted a voice, resonating and bouncing around in her aching brain before applying a firm squeeze to the temples in an attempt to calm it down. She would reply with a groan, fluttering her eyes open only to find herself on Callie’s floor with her cousin staring pitifully at her form, sprawled like a ragdoll on the rug. Oh, yeah, she must’ve dozed off some time after the sun rose.   
    “Why’d you sleep in my room? And on the scratchy rug, too?” She asked, squatting down to reach her cousin and giving her a series of pokes on the head.   
    “Ghhhgh...?”   
    “Aww, don’t worry, I forgive you!” reassured the early-bird, the reply seeming dead-set regardless of what she said. She rolled onto her back, next to Marie’s crumpled figure, and gave her a tight squeeze in sisterly affection. “There’s half of an omelette on the cooktop for you. Ah, but it’s probably cold by now...”   
    “Blehh.” Even though it was two in the goddamn afternoon, eating really didn’t feel like a good idea at the moment. Then again, her stomach always took a few hours to kick in after waking up, if at all.   
    “But, um,” Cal released her grip and pulled herself up to a sitting position, eyes still stuck to the mess of an idol as if afraid she would dematerialize right then and there. “Why... _Did_ you come over here? Bad dream?” The way Callie was so in-tune with her habits and emotions was, at the very least, impressive. At the very most, kind of terrifying.   
    Marie replied with a silent nod as Callie came forward and let the distraught one rest her heavy head on her lap.   
    “...Do you wanna talk about it?”   
    Marie hesitated for a moment, before shaking her head this time. “Well, I’ll stay with you ‘til you feel better, okay?”   
    “Sorry.”   
    “About what?” One side of Callie’s mouth raised in confusion, “I wanna be there for you, y’know?”   
   A pang of guilt shot through Marie’s chest, her lower lip quivering as such a sense of powerlessness reduced her to a child.   
    “I’m sorry,” she repeated once more, voice wavering in tone and shakily gripping onto the fabric of the other’s shorts in frustration.   
    “Mar—hey...”   
    The other squid detached from her sibling, curling into a fetal position alone on the floor. “Nnnh...”   
    A worried hand was brought down to touch her, the sensation of contact making Marie suddenly tense up. The hand would raise back up as to not disturb her.   
  “—I _hurt_ you...!” Marie finally spoke, hands gripped into fists and clasped together over her head. Her toes curled up in embarrassment from speaking out, about her real feelings: something she never did since she was always sub-par at it.   
    “You didn’t-“   
    “I made you feel like shit—It was like i didn’t care about you at all—I cared _more_ about my _shitty_ new celebrity life and i didnt-ghh—“   
    “Marie-“   
    “—And I didn’t even _THINK_ about how _you_ felt! I literally fucking ditched you for some guy i didn’t even know! I’m a self-obsessed piece of literal SHIT and I DESERVE to be—to lose—you-and-“   
     _“STOP!”_   
    Marie’s ears flattened.   
    “Ah-sorry-“ Callie squeaked out, trying to justify her outburst. “It’s not your fault! I didn’t leave because you wouldn’t talk to me, really—I mean, I kinda used it as a confirmationonwhethertorunawayornotbut/“ Wait, no, that wouldn’t make her feel better. “-I just wanted to leave because I ended up... Not liking celebrity life that much.”   
    “W-wha..?”   
    “It was so stressful!” the dancer confessed with a desperate, almost shouting tone in her voice as she vented. “Everything was so loud and people would always follow me—no one would leave me alone! I couldn’t be a normal person again! I don’t get how you lived with it, especially after I left!” With a deep breath to calm down, Callie eventually rested her hand onto Marie’s back once more, and, getting a lack of reaction this time, began to stroke it. “But I can get away from that life now. I’m here in Octo Valley with you, and agent four, and grandpa comes over every once in a while, too.” After a couple more pets, she would stop, lie down once more, and wrap her arms around her soul-sister’s waist, giving her a firm squeeze in a form of a hug before just lazily spooning her shaky form. With a little sigh she would continue, “It’ll take me a while to heal, and I know I can’t change things back to the way they were, but I’m finally happy again. I want you to be happy, too.”   
    Marie couldn’t bring herself to turn around and face her, as her face was completely covered in tears and snot. Instead, she would emit a little sniff and bring her legs back up. “...Sorry,” she muttered, throat catching on her words like a squid with the flu. “I... Probably made it a bigger deal than I should have.”   
    “Pff, stop saying you’re sorry,” Callie laughed, causing her cousin to make a huff of self-consciousness. “Just know that I’m not leaving you. We stick together from now on, ‘kay?”   
    Another tight hug was given to Marie’s fragile frame, squeezing a portion of air out of her lungs before recovering like nothing had happened. “‘Kay...”   
    “By the way, you smell awful.”   
    ”Yeah...”


End file.
